Fantasy Basketball Daily Notes

As we gear up for the All-Star break next week, owners should pay extra attention to their daily lineups. Guys that are typically playing through minor injuries could miss a game or two, as teams try to give them some extra rest before heading into the second half of the season.

There are already quite a few guys who have played their last game prior to the All-Star break. Sidelined for the last five games, Rockets’ center Dwight Howard is expected to miss about a month after undergoing a bone marrow injection in is right knee. The Rockets plan to reevaluate him in four weeks, in hopes that his knee responds well to this treatment. Howard just can’t catch a break. He’s only played in 32 of the Rockets’ 49 games this season.

The Rockets frontcourt is very crowded, but Howard’s injury should help alleviate some of the playing time issues. Joey Dorsey and Donatas Motiejunas should continue to start, while Terrence Jones and Josh Smith will see plenty of time off the bench.

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Right now, Kings games from here on out can be perfectly embodied by a The Ben Stiller Show skit. Such an underrated show (couldn’t find the clip on Youtube, it’s too old!). Andy Dick is on the bomb squad, gets to the bomb, then starts doing ridiculous things while the 10 seconds counts down that take a lot longer than 10 seconds… Cooks lunch, changes a baby, shizz like that. All the while the countdown clicks down unfathomably slow, until it’s at 1 and blows him up. Man, it’s hard to describe things when there’s not a video for it! 3rd Century problems…

Well, losing a quality PG like Darren Collison in the second quarter never helps (abdominal strain – getting an MRI today. Good thing he’s not a baseball player, he’d be out two months!), but the Kings are a bigger failed experiment than that prison Stanford thing after getting bludgeoned by the Dirk-less, Rondo-less Mavs. Too many good players to be this bad! Boogie turns it over too much, Gay isn’t working next to him, and the abyss that is the starting PF can’t be all to blame. At 17-31, that’s NOT how the West was won… Gay and Cuz make a lot of dough, but Colly playing this well on a 3-year $15 mil deal is starting to look mighty tasty to potential suitors. If he gets through this ab MRI with nothing worse than a “nice six pack” prognosis, I think it’s about time to sell. Of course Derrick Williams would be nice to dump, and, well, anyone else not named Ben McLemore (who is taking a nice step forward) would be awesome for SAC to kick out. A nice kick in the SAC is what the Kings need! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

From the depth of 90s video games, crossed with the beastly rancor of Joakim Noah (can you use rancor as an adjective? is that even the right part of speech?!), it’s the Goromotaro! An epic performance of 20/20 needed a name, but ever since Joakim pulled off a few back in the day, he hasn’t scored 20 points in like… a million years. Hasn’t yet this year! Shocking he’s scored double digits in only 2 of the past 19… But I digress…

The way things have looked the past month, Goromotaro might need a name or image change to feature Hassan Whiteside! Dude is hitting the glass harder than Cheech at a bong-only party. 24/20/0/3/2 last night for his first career Goro. Not that he hasn’t been close! Had a 23/16 and a 16/24 in there. Unreal! There’s only been 23 20+ board games this year, and Whiteside is two of them and has only 8 starts! Whiteside has the 7th Goro this year (the others belonging to Kenneth Faried, Zach Randolph, DeAndre Jordan, Andre Drummond, Pau Gasol and… you ready for this…? Jason Thompson!), and as good as those guys are (well, minus Thompson), I’d put good money on Whiteside being the first with multiple. He’s also 73% from the stripe his past 13 games! Getting a little unreal out there, and the 4 TO last night were very fluky – especially one on an inbounding violation that was totally Norris Cole‘s fault. Cole tried handing it back to Whiteside after he tossed it in during an odd, weird lack of awareness that cost the Heat the game! I’m pretty sure it was a play ran to perfection from the Larry Drew playbook… Here’s what else went down last night across the NBA:

Hard to believe Steve Carell, half of The Ambiguosuly Gay Duo, is now an Oscar nominated actor in Foxcatcher. That kind of ascension is bigger than a promotion from the D-League and turning into a fantasy superstar like the Hassanity! I would say it’s about as miraculous as Brad Stevens finally getting some sense slapped into him…

We figured it would happen at some point, but the Marcus Smart reign as the Celtics starting PG appears to have begun. Smart actually led the C’s in minutes with 37 in a 13/4/3/2/0 line. It’s nothing too flashy, but with the role finally bequeathed unto Smart we can finally stop calling Stevens a queef. Well, maybe not, because the Celtics coaching staff continues to mismanage Smart’s role, relegating him into a 3-point camping PG. It’d be like trying to turn Robin Lopez into a good player! Doesn’t make any good basketball logic… Smart shot 3-9 last night, with 2-7 being treys. A fantastic slasher at OK State, Stevens continually hammers this square peg into a round hole. They had the same problem when they tried to make the R-rated version of the Lego movie! Everything was not awesome… If Smart is still available in your 12er, now is the time to go ahead and hop on board. The FG% might not be awesome either, but I think he’ll fall into enough dimes and swipe enough to be usable. Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

Man, who woulda thought the Bucks without Brandon Knight (sat with minor injuries) would’ve been able to beat the Raptors last night?! I figured that big Jurassic Park reboot trailer during the Super Bowl would have pumped the Raps up! Well, I guess Canadians don’t really watch the Super Bowl, so their loss!

And while the 82-75 win was a defensive grinder, it didn’t slow down that impressive O from The Duchess K Middleton! 25/9/1/3/0 for Khris Middleton, hitting 10-17 FG (3-4 3PTM 2-2 FT) and only 1 TO. All that with Jorge Gutierrez as the fill-in starting PG! It didn’t matter though, since they had a JB waiting in the wings as well… But more there later. With 25 Pts last night, K-Midd is 17+ points in 4 of 5 and 3+ treys in 4 of 5. And multi-steals in 4 of 5 for good measure as well! Even though a lot of the counting stats are lower than the breakout last year, so are the minutes and the %s are much better. But my favorite leap is 1.0 steals in 30 minutes last year to a whopping 1.5 in only 26 this year. The Duchess is secretly a world-class thief! I think Keira Knightley could star in that movie. Larry Drew could be the evil drug lord! Maybe Ersan Ilyasova can be a Turkish arms dealer. The script is writing itself! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

Man, the question posed in the title there is a real toughie… I need to make a pros and cons list. I mean, more like a pros and D-league list…

First to last night – how can you call a throw right there?! Is Brad Stevens calling plays for the Seahawks all the sudden?! Ugh, enough football, but we’ll tie one more NFL reference here in the open if we can…

The Cavs went into Minnesota on Saturday night, and Kevin Love‘s return to Minnesota wasn’t exactly a metaphorical hug. I love the random ginger at 0:55… He has no idea what to do! He’s like, “boo!” wait, I mean, maybe I should clap? It’s like the end of Air Bud where both the creepy pedophile looking dude and the annoying kid try to call for the emotionally conflicted dog. Anyway, Cleveland got to see both of their #1 picks from the last two years, and spoiler alert! Andrew Wiggins did better. A cool 31/1/1/4/0 on 14-25 shooting and absolutely no issues with Kevin Martin back in the line-up. And still no Ricky Rubio, who is back tonight! All of Wiggins’ damage done with recent-signee Lorenzo Brown playing all 48. Meanwhile, Cleveland’s “other” former #1 pick Anthony Bennett played 13 minutes of nothingball. 0/1/1/0/0, and as we mentioned on the Pod with Andy Behrens the other week, Draymond Green went in the second round of that draft! Hopefully Kevin Costner had nothing to do with this Cleveland team’s Draft Day. That movie bombed harder than the Manziel pick! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

Last night was interesting to say the least. With 10 minutes left till line ups locked, the news came down that LeBron James was going to play. Then the scramble started because almost everyone was on Kyrie Irving after his 55 point performance. One bit of advice I can give you guys is you need to use Twitter for news and you need to be able to be around till line up lock. For example, you gotta leave the house for something an hour before line up lock and don’t have access to change your line ups, I recommend not playing that night. With the way the NBA jerks us around with injury news you gotta be able to make that necessary line up change. It could be matter of a winning night or a losing night. Ok enough rambling. Tonight we have a big 11 game slate. That’s because there is some kind of “Big Game” going on Sunday night. My prediction for the game is 24-13 and Tom Brady wins another Super Bowl.

Maybe it’s because this is my first season writing for Razzball, but it seems like just about every week this season, there are a handful of fantasy stars who have come down with serious injuries.

Last week, I mentioned that LaMarcus Aldridge and Kobe Bryant would miss a significant amount of time. This week, we have more clarity on their situations.

Aldridge was supposed to have surgery on the torn ligament in his thumb and miss 6-8 weeks. He changed his mind and decided that he would play through the pain, just in time to beat my Wizards on Saturday night. He may miss a few games here and there, but as long as he can manage the pain, he should remain a top player. Hopefully you didn’t drop him prematurely.

Kobe Bryant on the other hand doesn’t have the option of playing through his torn rotator cuff. He’s out for the season and is droppable in all redraft leagues. There isn’t talk of retirement yet, but the future hall of famer’s career is coming closer to the end.

Well, yet another example of why a starting nod doesn’t equate to production, even for seemingly good players…

The Bulls got embarrassed last night in LA, with Nikola Mirotic getting the start at SF. It was disastrous before, and twas disastrous again! Only got 12 minutes and did nothing other than get a steal and a turnover, and it looks like old Tibs wasn’t too happy. The ghost of Carlos Boozer shoved Mirotic around on a layup and he just isn’t a good defender – why we saw another healthy dose of Tony Snell. Even in a 2OT game, Tibs didn’t let Mirotic off the bench! Went small instead with Kirk Hinrich and Aaron Brooks picking up more PT late and in the OTs. And ultimate insult to injury – the Bulls still lost. But it was really Derrick Rose‘s fault as he continues to lay brickhouses on top of batches and batches of turnovers. He’s like a Martha Stewart version of The Big Bad Wolf! And the Bulls should’ve pulled this one out since the Lakers continually refuse to play their best player… Tarik Black! Outrageous! Egregious! Opprobrious! (thank you Thesaurus) Black is an MVP waiting to happen… Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy basketball action:

I imagine Kyrie Irving at tip did something similar to that right there! Off 38 points Tuesday night, Uncle Drew went bonkers against the Blazers for a season-high 55 yesterday, with LeBron James in street clothes. Klay who? 55/4/5/2/0 on 17-36 FG (11-19 3PTM 10-10 FT). That’s 17 treys and 16-16 FT the past two games, for a ho-hum 93 points. That’s a H2H matchup winner right there! As I mentioned in early December, I was fully buying in. Sure there was the horrifc Cavs playoff sched to consider, but that was mad early in the year. Now it’s time to reconsider. At that point I was saying second round value was legit to pay, but I think you might be able to take a sucker for first round value, especially if they’re a points whore. Most metrics have Kyrie at around 7-8 in overall value, and if you can swing that into something that fits the playoff schedule a little bit better, now is the time when the proverbial iron is hot. So while Kyrie is calling out Lillard, he’s also calling out top-seeded fantasy teams to sell him off like the hot bubble stock he is. Investing jokes! We’re an ecletic mix of references here at Razzball Nation… Here’s what else went down last night on a busy Wednesday of fantasy basketball action: